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Albion Records

Albion Records is the recording label of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society and is devoted to recordings of Vaughan Williams, including rarely heard works and many world premières.

The label of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society

MENTOR AND MUSE

Songs by Vaughan Williams and the women around him; Vaughan Williams, Elizabeth Maconchy and Grace Williams come together in a compelling portrait of mentorship, friendship and fiercely individual creativity.
Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano), William Vann (piano)

FROM URSULA WITH LOVE

Unknown recordings from over 60 years ago are now released by Albion for the first time. Four major works by Ralph Vaughan Williams were privately recorded and given to the late Ursula Vaughan Williams between 1961 and 1972. Ursula, in turn, gave this unique material to The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society in 1996.
Fourteen of the seventeen tracks on the album have never been commercially issued on record.

RISE, HEART

This is an album of works by Ralph Vaughan Williams for voice, arranged with string quartet, string quintet or piano. The folk song settings and the Cantata, Willow-Wood are the first recordings of those works in this format. Performed by sought-after baritone Roderick Williams, pianist William Vann and the Sacconi Quartet.

MANTEGNA

The tune Mantegna was written for a passion-tide hymn about Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. The poem was called ‘The Agony in the Garden’, which is also the name given to Mantegna’s 1455-6 painting (the album’s cover picture). Vaughan Williams knew it and named his tune after the artist. The organist Francis Jackson (1917-2022) was fascinated by the tune Mantegna and wrote a set of orchestral variations on it, called ‘Homage to Vaughan Williams’.

I HAVE LIVED & LOVED

The album begins with the first complete recording by a woman of Vaughan Williams’s cycle of nine songs: Songs of Travel. The cycle has been a male preserve until now. We are proud to present Kathryn Rudge’s pioneering recording, accompanied by the Australian pianist Penelope Thwaites. Also on the CD, Alessandro Fisher sings three songs from Vaughan Williams’s operas.

ROYAL THRONE OF KINGS

Ralph Vaughan Williams loved Shakespeare, and it inspired his music throughout his long composing career. This album is a collection of some of that music, much of it now heard for the first time.

A CHRISTMAS FANTASIA

Premiere recordings of works by Rebecca Clarke, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs and Gerald Finzi and William Vann. There are also two first recordings of carols from Herefordshire by Vaughan Williams set for a capella SATB. Other carols are by John Ireland, Herbert Howells and Elizabeth Maconchy.

CAROLS FROM HEREFORDSHIRE

In 1920 Mrs Ella Mary Leather and Ralph Vaughan Williams jointly published Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire. Vaughan Williams arranged each of the carols twice: first, for unaccompanied choir (SATB); and second, for voice and piano. The choral versions are recorded as a set in 2024 for the first time, coupled with the alternative settings for voice and piano, recorded in 2011.

ROMANCE AND REVERIE

HOLST AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

This album is released by The Gustav Holst Society, with Albion Records, in 2024 in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Gustav Holst’s birth on 21 September 1874. It includes The Lark Ascending for violin and harp as well as unrecorded works by some of Holst’s neglected contemporaries; works by Rebecca Clarke, Ethel Barns and William Hurlstone were selected.

THE GRINKE LEGACY

This new issue gathers into one place all of Grinke’s Vaughan Williams recordings. Here can be found his 1939 reading of the Concerto Accademico (Violin Concerto) and the 1940 The Lark Ascending, as well the Hymn-Tune Prelude ‘Eventide’

HUGH THE DROVER

It has been 50 years since this recording was last transcribed for modern media, so Albion Records has remastered it again, from original 78s, with the benefit of more modern technology. It is coupled with a number of songs and folk song arrangements by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp.

SERENADE TO MUSIC

Written for sixteen named singers who had worked over the years with both Henry Wood and Vaughan Williams. Serenade to Music explores each of the sixteen singers through other 78 rom recordings that they made.

PORTRAITS OF A MIND

The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society commissioned a new work from Ian Venables who has created a song cycle, Portraits of a Mind, using the same forces (tenor, piano and string quartet) as those specified for Vaughan Williams’s song cycle On Wenlock Edge.

SHORTLIST 2024

THE FIRST SONGS OF TRAVEL

This pioneering 1954 Westminster LP recital by Richard Standen (bass-baritone), accompanied by Frederick Stone (piano), has been remastered for Albion Records by Ronald Grames in excellent sound and issued on ALBCD055.

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS – SERENADE

A celebration of the 150th birthday of Ralph Vaughan Williams.

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS ON BRASS

Henry the Fifth Overture
Three Welsh Hymns and Variations
Tuba Concerto
Arrangements

5 WORLD PREMIERS!
26 Tracks!

PAN’S ANNIVERSARY

Ben Jonson’s masque with incidental music by Vaughan Williams and additional arrangements by Gustav Holst.

Tallis Fantasia
arranged for Voices and String Octet

TRANSCRIPTIONS FROM TRURO

Organ transcriptions from Truro Cathedral.
Five Variants on Dives and Lazarus
The Lark Ascending
Symphony No. 5 in D major

3 PREMIERE RECORDINGS

A LONDON SYMPHONY

A London Symphony arranged for piano duet by Archibald Jacob.
Preludio, Fugato e Finale by Elizabeth Maconchy.
Eclogue by Gerald Finzi.

EARTH’S WIDE BOUNDS

Communion Service in G minor
Valiant-for-Truth
Nocturne: By The Bivouac’s Fitful Flame
Hymns and anthems

13 WORLD PREMIERS!
19 Tracks!

FOLK SONGS VOLUME 4

All but four of the songs were collected by Maud Karpeles in Newfoundland in 1929 and 1930.

10 PREMIERE RECORDINGS

AN OXFORD CHRISTMAS

This recording focusses on arrangements made by Vaughan Williams for The Oxford Book of Carols (1928), coupled with two later carols published by Oxford University Press.

2 PREMIERE RECORDINGS

WALTON & VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Piano duet versions of two important works by William Walton with the first recording of a ‘student’ piece by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

DIGITALLY REMASTERED

RVW FROM AMERICA

Forgotten Recordings of the 50s…brings a number of important première recordings from the LP era to a digital format for the first time.

14 WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS

FOLK SONGS VOLUME 3

Folk Songs from the Eastern Counties.

15 WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS

FOLK SONGS VOLUME 2

Complete Vaughan Williams folk song arrangements – the second of four albums.

15 WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS

FOLK SONGS VOLUME 1

Complete Vaughan Williams folk song arrangements – the first of four albums.

Beecham El Amor Brujo

MUSIC FOR STAGE AND SCREEN

Archive recordings from the film and theatre worlds.
Release date: 25 September 2020.

PREMIERE RECORDINGS

SONGS AND PIANO MUSIC BY JOHN SYKES

Songs, solo piano works and piano duo.

14 WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS

TIME AND SPACE

Songs by Holst and Vaughan Williams.

FREE TO MEMBERS!

ALBION’S JOURNEY

The Life and Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams 1872-1958.

15 WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS

THE SONG OF LOVE

Songs and Duets.

VIOLA FANTASIA

Suite for Viola and Piano,
Romance for Viola and Piano,
Six Studies in English Folk Song, Fantasia on Greensleeves, Fantasia on Sussex Folk Tunes, Four Hymns for Tenor, Viola& Piano.